Abstract

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are described as individuals having a shallow affective style characterized by a lack of moral emotions such as guilt or remorse. CU traits can be further broken down into two variants; the primary described as an inborn emotional processing deficit and the secondary described as an adaptive response to the individual’s environment. Youth with CU traits may have different interpretation biases and levels of emotion recognition accuracy depending on the individual’s variant. Future research should examine differences in interpretation biases in those with CU traits of different genders, at younger ages, and in the presence of cooccurring disorders.